Pen grip attracts dust and lint. Duo button is still too easy to press. Multitouch gesture accuracy trails that of a good laptop trackpad. Wireless kit is optional.

Bottom Line

The Wacom Intuos5 drawing tablet is well-designed, comes in multiple sizes, and offers a near-ideal balance of features and accuracy for the price.

The Wacom Intuos5 ($349 direct) continues the company's tradition of delivering quality drawing tablets at reasonable prices. The Intuos5 is a modest step up from the successful Intuos4 (4 stars), refining the design and adding multitouch gestures. But the basic concept—and execution—remain the same. Whether you're a professional illustrator, photography enthusiast, or an amateur cartoonist, this is the midrange tablet to get and a clear Editors' Choice winner.

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Design, Pen, and SetupFor this review, we tested the PTH650 (Medium) version, which retails for $349; Wacom also sells the smaller PTH450 ($229) and the larger PTH850 ($469). The PTH650 measures 9.9 by 15 by 0.5 inches (HWD), with a 8.8 by 5.5 inch (HWD) drawing area, and weighs 2.2 pounds. Like prior Intuos tablets, the Intuos5 is made of black plastic, but this one features a sleeker, slightly rubberized border instead of a hard plastic one. The usual nicely textured hard plastic drawing surface remains intact. Along the left are eight recessed, programmable ExpressKeys as before (albeit with a different labeling scheme—more on that later). There's also a circular control pad you can configure for auto-scrolling, rotation, cycling between layers in Photoshop or another compatible program, and changing the brush size.

The included pen offers just the right amount of weight and balance. Two earlier nits remain: The pen grip attracts a surprising amount of dust particles and lint, and it's too easy to accidentally press the front-mounted DuoSwitch while laying down virtual ink. On the plus side, you still get an eraser, unlike with two of Wacom's latest low-end Bamboo tablets, and the included weighty base is still an ideal place to park the pen when you're not using it.

Installing the included driver CD was painless; all it did was go out to the Web and download the latest drivers anyway. Then I chose the appropriate right-handed orientation and plugged in the included USB cable as directed. The tablet's status LED lit up, and the system finished installing the drivers. From there, the Intuos5 became active; I could control the Windows 7 mouse cursor using the tablet surface as well as my existing mouse.

Bundled Software, ExpressKeys, and MultitouchWacom also provides a good amount of bundled software with the Intuos5, though it requires a somewhat clunky login setup and download process on the company's website. Even so, it's worth the (minor) trouble: You get full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 , Anime Studio Debut 8 , and Autodesk SketchBook Express, plus a copy of Nik Software Color Effects Pro 4 Select Edition and a 90-day trial of Corel Painter 12. All five programs work on both PCs and Macs.

The programmable ExpressKeys on the left are of a new capacitive design. Simply running your finger over them pops up a translucent heads-up display on screen showing what each one does, which is quite slick. When you're writing in Microsoft Word, the Intuos software pops up a small drawing pen icon near the on-screen cursor. Tap it, and it opens up a dialog box showing various handwriting recognition options.

Meanwhile, the new multitouch gestures work much the same way as they did on the lower-end Wacom Bamboo Capture CTH470 ($99, 3.5 stars). I had little problem pinch-zooming the view on-screen in both directions, providing I did it fairly deliberately. Rotation gestures also worked well. That said, not all of my gestures registered on the first try; Wacom still has a way to go before it approaches the consistency of a good laptop trackpad, like you'll find on the Apple MacBook Pro.

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Settings, Testing, and Advanced Features A Wacom Tablet Properties icon in the Start menu lets you go deeper into the tablet's settings. Here, you can configure plenty of options for the surface, the grip pen, and for various applications. Of particular note are the Tip Feel and Tilt Sensitivity settings, which let you define with precision exactly how the pen draws, and the Eraser settings, which also have a configurable feel and can be programmed for other tasks instead of erasing. You can also program individual settings on a per-app basis, letting you choose different levels of tip firmness for painting versus photo editing.

Once everything is installed and underway, using the Intuos5 is an absolute pleasure. This is one accurate drawing surface, and by now, Wacom has long since nailed the pen feel and surface texture. The Intuos5 offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is the same as before. As with any drawing tablet, if you've never used one before, you'll need to adjust how you position your hand, wrist, and arm so that you don't trigger accidental movements or "ink," and you may want to fiddle with some of the preferences to tune the sensitivity. But once you get the hang of that, it's easy to apply exactly the right amount of pressure, and the tablet picks up even the absolute slightest movements.

In addition, if you use Adobe Photoshop CS5 , Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 , or AutoDesk Maya , among other apps, the Intuos5 lets you take advantage of plenty of advanced features. For example, pen tilt and pressure can control brush opacity and exposure in Photoshop, as well as color and size. Photoshop Quick Masks and Layer Masks also work specifically with Wacom pens, and you can burn, blur, and sharpen as precisely as you need. You don't get the tilt support if you're not using a compatible app, but given the target market for the Intuos5 line, which is usually familiar with at least one of these professional packages, that's not a huge con.

Wireless Kit and ConclusionsWacom also sent us a Wireless Accessory Kit ($39) to try out. Even if you buy one with the tablet, you still need to set the tablet up over USB first, because the battery isn't charged. Installing the battery underneath the tablet is simple, and it takes about six hours to fully charge. You also get a separate piece that adds a charging LED light and a power button to the Intuos5, in place of a dummy plastic cover that ships with the tablet. Finally, a tiny USB receiver plugs into a free port on your desktop or laptop. Overall, the wireless kit works fine; I'd just rather see all of the Intuos5 tablets be wireless by default, instead of requiring an optional kit that costs extra.

The Intuos5 continues to reign supreme as the ideal midrange drawing tablet for professionals and amateurs alike. Upgrading from an older Intuos model isn't necessary; there's not much here that improves over the prior Intuos4 line , for example, at least in terms of must-have features. But if you don't already have one, or if you're thinking of upgrading from one of Wacom's entry-level tablets like the Bamboo Capture CTH470 , it's a no-brainer. Short of buying one of Wacom's high-end touch screens, which let you draw directly on the screen surface, the Intuos5 strikes an ideal balance of features, accuracy, and price for professionals and amateur enthusiasts alike.

Jamie Lendino is the Editor-in-Chief of ExtremeTech.com, and has written for PCMag.com and the print magazine since 2005. Recently, Jamie ran the consumer electronics and mobile teams at PCMag, and before that, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Smart Device Central, PCMag's dedicated smartphone site, for its entire three-year run from 2006 to 2009. Prior to PCMag, he was a contributing editor for Laptop and mediabistro.com. His writing has also been published in Popular Science, Consumer Reports, Electronic Musician, and Sound and Vision, as well as...
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